Learning To Love

Five

Luca De Santos

I like that all of my brothers are taking a liking to Josie, especially Tristen, because he may not now it, but we care about him, just as much. It's just hard to talk with him when he doesn't like to talk to us about anything that is going on in his life.

But I also know that I had to wait for him to want to come to us, or have him push us out of his life completely. It isn't easy being the oldest, but it is my job, to make sure that all of my siblings are okay.

I also wouldn't have it any other way of having younger siblings. I just hate that it took us so long to find Josie, and it wasn't even us that found her, it was the police, all because that had a warrant out for Kelly's arrest.

If it wasn't for that warrant, I can say for sure on how much longer Josie would've been with him.

My father is the Capo for our Mafia, and I am his underboss, I will continue to be until he decides to step down, or if he dies. In this life it is more often the Capo dies before retirement.

My father has given me a portion of his territory to rule over and I have my own men for the portion of the territory. But I still answer to my father.

He can be scary, on the way how he can go from jovial to murderous in a split second. I don't know how he does it.

I set down the paper with our shipment information and rub my eyes, why does everyone think they can get away with their slaking in making sure our product doesn't get taken. We just lost a crate of Sako TRG 22 A1's. Sniper rifles that are the best on the market and are only contracted to the military.

(Don't actually know if that is true about the guns, but it's true in this story.)

It is very hard to get hands on those snipers, but we managed, and now our men lost the crate. Idiots, all of them.

Guess this is why that saying of "if you want something done right, you got to do it yourself," exists.

I hear a very soft knock on my office door and I can't help but smile since I know that it is Josie.

"Come in, Bambina."

(Babygirl)

The door opens slowly and she peeks her head in and looks at me. I wave for her to come over. A smile splits her adorable face and she comes skipping over to me and climbs into my lap.

"I want to learn to read." She says softly, like she is scared of being told no.

"We were actually going to ask you about wanting to learn to read and write. We also want to teach you about the outside as much as we can. Are you alright with us getting you a tutor?" I ask.

"Why can't you teach me?" She asks with a pout on her lips.

"Well I can teach you some stuff, but a tutor will be able to help you with learning other things too."

"Okay." She says with a bright smile on her face. She leans forward and wraps her arms around my neck and lays her head on my shoulder.

"Thank you, Luca." It is the first time that she has really said my name and I can't help but smile at her cuteness.

"You're welcome, Bambina."

"What does Bambina mean?"

"It means babygirl in Italian. That is where our family is from, Italy."

"I like that. Can we go see Italy?"

"Maybe someday, we can go there, but for right now, we can't." What I am not telling her is that there is a turf war going on in Italy, against the Spanish Mafia in Spain. Why they want Italy, I have no idea.

"Okay, but you will let me know on when we can go, right?" She asks looking up at me.

"Of course." I say with reassurance.

"Okay." She pulls her bottom lip in between her teeth and looks to the side and I can tell that she is wanting to say something else.

"What's wrong?"

"I need help changing." She says in a low embarrassed tone.

"Alright, let's get you changed and also get you started on how to use the toilet."

She nods her head and I stand up with her in my arms and walk out my office and to her room. I go to her attached bathroom and grab out a pullup from under the counter.

"Do you still need to go potty?" I ask and she nods her head.

I help her with getting onto the toilet. She is so short that her feet aren't even touching the floor when sitting on the toilet. We will have to get her a step stool. I hear her pee and then I grab some toilet paper and tell her on how to wipe.

She wipes and then jumps down off of the toilet and I help her into a clean pullup. I bring her over to the sink and sit her down on the counter and have her wash her hands.

"Alright, now let's go get something to eat for you."

"Okay."

I bring her down to the kitchen and I start making five cheese mac and cheese. What kid doesn't like mac and cheese?

After making the food, I set the plate in front of her and all my other brothers come tumbling into the kitchen and I know it's because they smelled the food. It's a good thing I made enough for everyone. I gave them each their own plate.

"This is really good." Josie says with her mouth full of cheese covered noodles.

"That's good, Bambina." I say with a smile on my face. I see that she ends up with only eating about a forth of her plate, which is to be expected since Kelly probably didn't give her much food.

I can't wait until he is in our cells. My men are already getting him out of prison so that he can be switched to our prison.

I am going to have fun, making it last for his suffering, just like he did with Josie.